[Peace-discuss] Close Presbyterian Vote on Selective Divestment Shows Likudniks Losing Middle America

[Robert Naiman]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/close-presbyterian-vote-o_b_1654705.html

Thursday night, by what the *Christian Science Monitor*called the "thinnest
of margins<http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2012/0706/Presbyterians-reject-call-to-divest-over-Israel-s-West-Bank-occupation>"
the General Assembly of the 1.9 million member Presbyterian Church USA
failed to approve a resolution requiring the church to divest its $20
million investments in Caterpillar, Motorola, and Hewlett-Packard over the
ties of these companies to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza,
and East Jerusalem.

The vote at the PCUSA's General Assembly in Pittsburgh was 333-to-331. In
percentage terms, 49.85% were in favor of selective divestment from the
Israeli occupation and 50.15% were opposed.

No doubt many among what Peter Beinart calls "the American Jewish
establishment<http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/jun/10/failure-american-jewish-establishment/>"
celebrated the result. They had pulled out the stops to block the
Presbyterians' selective divestment move. 1300 rabbis and 22,000 other Jews
wrote<http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/07/06/3100021/presbyterians-narrowly-reject-divestment>
to
the Presbyterians, falsely seeking to characterize the proposed move as "the
use of economic leverages against the Jewish
state<http://engage.jewishpublicaffairs.org/c/627/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=10797>
."

Yet as The Rev. Gradye Parsons, stated clerk of the PCUSA General
Assembly, explained
in the*Washington
Post*<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/guest-voices/post/presbyterian-church-usa-approves-divestment-measure-at-general-assembly/2012/07/03/gJQA1X6ALW_blog.html>,
the resolution was opposed to specific actions of particular companies
linked to the occupation, leaving investments in many other companies doing
business in Israel untouched. And therefore, claims that the Presbyterians
were contemplating "divesting from Israel" or "boycotting Israel" were
disinformation; disinformation that, in the short-run, may have proved
successful.

But as the Sergeant
said<http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/pirates/web_op/pirates27.html> to
the Pirate King,

"To gain a brief advantage you've contrived/But your proud triumph will not
be long-lived."


[...]

-- 
Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
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